Silvia Swinden

According to a report by the British newspaper The Guardian new documents it has seen confirm what the ex Ambassador to Uzbekistan has been saying all along. That the UK Foreign Office knew torture was being used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects and in spite of its illegality and unreliability it accepted information thus obtained.

Can Lord Justice Leveson be really impartial? He socialised, like many other important people, with Rupert Murdoch, his family & his PR man. Are we surprised by this cosy relationship between Politicians, Media, the higher echelons of the Police (Sir Paul Stevenson, Metropolitan Police Commissioner resigned over indirect links to News Corps) and even the Judiciary? Sadly not.

The National Health Service (NHS) was born after World War 2. Since then British people have been able to rely on a high quality, free at the point of delivery and paid for by taxes, health provider. Successive governments, starting with Margaret Thatcher’s have been trying to introduce market policies and privatisation into it.

It started with the News of the World’s royal editor and a private investigator who intercepted voice mail messages left for members of the royal household. Both men were jailed in 2007. Illegal voice mail interceptions apparently continued, implicating other journalists and staff. Now James Murdoch, Rupert’s son has closed the newspaper.

Last week it was announced that Rupert Murdoch would be allowed to own all of BSkyB, a large provider of TV and video. Now a series of reports of criminal and indecent journalism on the part of the “News of the World”, part of Murdoch’s newspaper group are coming out. Avaaz is campaigning to flood the BSkyB public consultation and stop the deal.

Japanese children have been shown to be contaminated with radioactive caesium just weeks after the government raised the acceptable level of contamination in schools which provoked angry responses from parents. At the same time it is revealed that the UK government attempted to minimise the importance of the accident in order to prevent a backlash against nuclear energy.

Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement for democracy in Burma is hanging in the balance this week, with the regime threatening a brutal response to her call to free political prisoners. Activists have appealed to the world for help, saying international pressure is crucial to tipping the balance. Avaaz calls people to sign a petition

While members of the Spanish 15M Democracy Now were attempting to demonstrate at Wimbledon where their beloved tennis hero Rafael Nadal was due to play, in Glastonbury U2’s Bono (“Saint Bono”) was being given a hard time by Art Uncut for dodging taxes by moving part of his huge wealth into a tax haven used by big corporations responsible for much of the poverty he criticises.

Thousands of people took part in a march in central Tel Aviv in support of a Palestinian state. The protest was held under the banner “Israel says yes to a Palestinian state.” World without wars and without violence marched with them in support of active nonviolence as the only methodology than can truly resolve conflicts.

Trafalgar Square was the venue of a multitudinous Assembly, mainly of young people, inspired by the Spanish and Greek mobilisations demanding real democracy. At the same time UK Uncut carried out actions in defence of the health service inside and outside banks, to raise awareness about their role in the economic crisis used to justify the impending destruction of the NHS.